1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a vehicle information processing device, a vehicle, and a vehicle information processing method, which can be used for assisting in driving an automobile.
2. Description of the Related Art
There have been proposed various methods for detecting various situations of vehicles and communicating detection results to prevent accidents.
Vehicles are configured such that a driver can handle freely, while the driver sometimes finds it difficult to recognize his/her character, driving habit or driving skill. Thus, the driver sometimes drives inappropriately for surroundings without being aware of it, which may cause accidents. What are difficult for the driver to be aware of include, for example, rapid acceleration, rapid deceleration, abrupt braking that causes the vehicle to pitch forward, a speed appropriate for a width of a road, and tire wear.
Thus, the methods for detecting the vehicle situations and communicating the detection results have been adapted such that a horn sound is issued to communicate a situation where a traveling speed exceeds a certain value and to communicate access to an obstacle closer than a predetermined value, thus providing feedback of the vehicle situation to the driver to prevent accidents.
However, this type of feedback mechanism may give the driver trouble, and sometimes irritate or annoy him/her. Thus, a mechanism for issuing a horn sound when a traveling speed exceeds a certain value is not actually mounted in recent vehicles.
As a method for solving this problem, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 8-339446 proposes a method for expressing a driver's condition detected through interaction visually by facial expressions or behaviors of a character. Similarly, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 9-102098 proposes a method for communicating various warnings or the like to a driver in a similar manner.
However, these methods have a problem that the vehicle situation cannot be properly communicated to the driver, though the methods can somewhat reduce the driver's trouble.